1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image display apparatus, and more particularly, to an apparatus and method for driving an image display apparatus, which detect a smooth region, an edge region, and a detail region from externally input image data and improve an image at different rates in the detected regions, thereby increasing the improvement efficiency of the image.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Flat panel displays which have recently emerged include a Liquid Cristal Display (LCD), a field emission display, a plasma display panel, and a light emitting display.
Owing to their benefits of high resolution, superb color representation, and excellent image quality, the flat panel displays are widely used for laptop computers, desk top computers, and mobile terminals.
Conventionally, to enhance the clarity of an image displayed in such an image display apparatus, the clarity is changed uniformly across the image by filtering the data of the image. Specifically, the gray level or luminance of input image data is uniformly changed so that the difference in luminance or chroma between adjacent pixels gets large.
However, although the conventional method for uniformly changing image data through filtering may enhance the clarity of edge or detail regions of an image to be displayed, it increases noise in smooth regions of the image, thereby degrading the image quality of the smooth regions. As the image data is filtered strongly during conversion of the image data, that is, the image data is changed more greatly, noise also increases in the smooth regions perceived to the eyes of a user. As a consequence, the image quality of a displayed image is rather degraded.